The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is to acquire the names, addresses, and other details of visa holders, their sponsors, and migration agents for the 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
These records will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify non-compliance with registration, lodgment, reporting and payment obligations under taxation laws.
It is estimated that records relating to approximately 1,000,000 individuals will be obtained.
According to the ATO, the purpose of this data matching program is to ensure that ” … taxpayers are correctly meeting their taxation obligations.”
The objectives of the exercise are apparently to:
> Improve intelligence on the overall level of compliance with taxation obligations by visa holders, sponsors, migration agents
> Test the veracity and strengths of existing risk detection models and treatment systems and identify areas for improvement in the ATO’s suite of compliance models and treatment systems and practices
> Improve the integrity of the data on the Australian Business Register by cancelling ineligible registrants
> Identify potentially new or widespread fraud methodologies and those entities controlling or exploiting those methodologies
> Assist in developing and implementing administrative strategies to improve voluntary compliance by visa holders, sponsors, and migration agents; and
> Ensure compliance with registration, lodgment, correct reporting and payment of taxation and superannuation obligations.
More background about the data matching exercise is here.